Comparison

CHMate+ vs MapleRead CE

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

CHMate+

This app provides a robust reading experience for EPUB and CHM eBooks. Organize your library, add bookmarks and notes, and easily search for text. Customize your reading with adjustable fonts and brightness, and share passages with friends.

Highlights
  • Organize files into personal collections
  • Add bookmarks and notes
  • Customizable fonts and line height
  • Built-in search feature
  • Share quotes with friends
  • Adjustable screen brightness
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Most e-readers are bloated with monthly subscription traps, intrusive ads, and clumsy formatting. CHMate brings the quiet focus and tactile elegance of a real book back to your screen. Native EPUB and CHM reader with rich typography customization, instant search, and paper themes. Trusted by readers for over a decade, now rebuilt natively for modern iOS. Pay once, own forever. Full unlimited access with no subscriptions. CHMate+ is a local EPUB and CHM reader for iPhone and iPad. Import the books and documents you already own, arrange them into a library you enjoy, and read each one in the way that suits it best. CRAFTED FOR FOCUSED READING • Paper Texture & Themes: Curated paper backgrounds, customizable fonts, line spacing, margins, and dark mode • Distraction-Free: Clean interface designed to put nothing between you and the text • Tactile Gestures: Smooth chapter transitions and fluid page-turning that respect your reading rhythm DUAL FORMAT POWER: EPUB & CHM • EPUB: Perfect for literature, novels, and reflowable publications • CHM & MHT: Read technical documentation, programming references, and compiled help manuals with structured tables of contents POWERFUL, PRIVATE UTILITIES • Instant Search: Lightning-fast full-text search across chapters • Highlights & Notes: Capture the quotes that move you and review annotations easily • iCloud Theme Sync: Seamlessly sync your typography themes across your devices via CloudKit • Local Wi-Fi Transfer: Drop books directly from your computer browser to your device over Wi-Fi without cables HONEST, ONE-TIME PURCHASE • Full access and unlimited bookshelf included from the start • No in-app purchases. No recurring subscriptions. • No ads. No tracking.

About

MapleRead CE

This app offers an immersive EPUB reading experience with customizable audio-visual features. It allows users to personalize book styles, generate audiobooks, and sync progress across devices. It also functions as a powerful library management tool for organizing and accessing your book collection.

Highlights
  • Customizable EPUB reader
  • Pseudo audiobook generation
  • Immersion reading (sync audio/text)
  • Library management and organization
  • Cross-device sync
  • User-defined customization options
Currently charting
Read full description

MapleRead is dedicated to enable unique audio-visual reading experience for everyone. ------------ Our MapleRead app family has 3 members, namely SE, CE and CX. - SE is our flagship product with all features. - CE is SE without PDF reader and built-in Library Server. - CX is CE with some limitation. Free to try. - No recurring subscription fees. No ads. Just buy it once. Gratuity optional. - Moreover, SE and CE can be run side-by-side via split-view multitasking. - Recommend SE for use on multiple devices with easy and fast book sharing via Library Server. - Recommend the SE-CE bundle for the best value. ------------ MapleRead includes a superb audio-visual EPUB e-book reader. - It lets you easily modify publisher's original book style to better suit your aesthetic taste. - It lets you instantly generate pseudo audiobooks with a choice of narrator voices over 40 languages. - It enables immersion reading so that you may read and listen to the same book in sync. - Background listening works well too. Compatible with Lock Screen Music Player and CarPlay. MapleRead UI is friendly to users of all ages. - Books can be read in regular and large print. - A choice of UI text sizes makes reading in non-book views much more comfortable. MapleRead is a great learning tool. - It lets you look up words, translate sentences, search text, highlight text and write notes. - It helps you collect vocabulary and organize notes with various priorities. - It provides hooks to user-defined dictionaries, translators, and other tools. - Immersion reading improves your comprehension, especially of foreign-language books. MapleRead is an effective and fast library management tool. - It is designed for you, a book lover, who may own a huge and/or growing book collection. - It lets you keep all your books in one place and well-organized automatically. - It lets you display your books elegantly in style. - It lets you easily repair individual book metadata. - If supports multiple book sets and multiple tags. - It offers multiple ways to import and export books, and works well with Calibre. MapleRead supports secure sync across devices via MapleRead Cloud and iCloud. - It syncs reading positions, notes, vocab, bookmarks, and book set membership (but not the books). - It syncs reading positions additionally via iCloud for even better user experience. - It enables web access to synced data via web browsers from desktop and mobile devices. MapleRead offers unprecedented user-defined customization options. - They include unlimited user-defined fonts, book themes, cover images and library scenes. - Each book theme includes various types of user-defined highlight colors. - Each book can have its own theme, and each EPUB book can have its own style. [For more technical details, screenshots, FAQ and reviews, please visit our website.]

Screenshots

CHMate+4 screens
MapleRead CE4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: MapleRead CE at 4.4 against CHMate+'s 3.8. MapleRead CE also leads on review sentiment (79% vs 61%) and price ($6.99 vs $9.99). CHMate+'s advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

CHMate+ costs $9.99 and MapleRead CE $6.99 up front. MapleRead CE sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. CHMate+ asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

MapleRead CE holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 12 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 61% of CHMate+'s written reviews are positive against 79% of MapleRead CE's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
CHMate+ versus MapleRead CE: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCHMate+MapleRead CE
Price$9.99$6.99 — better
Rating3.8 (8 ratings)4.4 (12 ratings) — better
Positive reviews60.9% of reviews78.6% of reviews — better
Number of ratings812 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
Best chart rank#145#46 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size48 MB26 MB
Age rating4+17+
Developer贤安 陈Maplepop LLC

Customer experience

CHMate+

All ratings8 ratings
Positive62.5%
Neutral12.5%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews230 reviews
Positive60.9%
Neutral13.0%
Negative26.1%

MapleRead CE

All ratings12 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral8.3%
Negative8.3%
Written reviews14 reviews
Positive78.6%
Neutral14.3%
Negative7.1%

Bugs and requests

CHMate+

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Crashes when searching within documents
  • Table of contents not syncing with current position
  • Highlighting and annotations not working reliably
  • Issues with opening and loading certain CHM files

Requested features

5 requests
  • Full-text search across documents
  • Folder organization for files
  • Improved image handling and zooming
  • Sync with cloud storage services
  • Ability to rename files

MapleRead CE

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

CHMate+

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

MapleRead CE

One-time3
  • Small Gratuity$0.99
  • Gratuity Level 2$1.99
  • Gratuity Level 5$4.99

Questions

Is CHMate+ free?
CHMate+ costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is MapleRead CE free?
MapleRead CE costs $6.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, CHMate+ or MapleRead CE?
MapleRead CE is rated higher. CHMate+ averages 3.8 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while MapleRead CE averages 4.4 from 12 ratings.
Do CHMate+ or MapleRead CE have ads?
Neither CHMate+ nor MapleRead CE shows ads.
Which is updated more often, CHMate+ or MapleRead CE?
CHMate+ ships an update every 2 months, and MapleRead CE every 2 months. Most recently, CHMate+ was updated on September 23, 2026 and MapleRead CE on September 21, 2026.
Which is more popular, CHMate+ or MapleRead CE?
CHMate+ currently peaks at #145 in the App Store charts, and MapleRead CE at #46. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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